Wow?
Glad you stopped by, what can I do to get more sugar on my buds?
I feed them Organic Miracle grow time release pellets from Home Depot & I am using 3.5 cfl lights - one has been flickering all week I have meant to fix it but have not gotten around to it
I have also been struggling with PH for the last couple months maybe that has something to do with it?
By the way what are you growing?
T
Ah. Yea. I'm pretty new to growing but I've learned a lot in just 2 grows. I always like to compare with other growers and see what I'm doing differently that results in better/worse buds. Every time I buy a new product I always do a controlled test to see if it actually has any benefit. I used to use MG all purpose and bloom but not anymore cus the correct dosage was a bit hard to figure out and didn't want to risk burning my TGA babies. Not familiar with the NPK ratio of the time release.
For CFL that's pretty good then. Haven't seen buds that big with CFL.
I guess what I learned from experience so far is that PH is really important. If your PH is off your plants won't grow and they'll soon start to show deficiencies. If you notice no change in growth in your plant for a few days, immediately flush. I usually resume feeding at full strength afterwards but at a slightly higher PH (if the PH was too low before). I find that if you always feed at PH 6, by the end of the week your runoff will be 5 or lower, so it's good to give em straight water once a week or so.
Second is right amount of nutrients. I mainly grow in coco (but have some plants in FF OF). There is a thread somewhere that compared FoxFarm OceanForest to Roots Organic and the FoxFarm was much better. In my opinion, if you're gonna do soil then hands down Subcool's formula wins.
I use a 3-1-2 veg food for fairly healthy and robust growth. Maybe there are better ratios out there for veg but I haven't tested it out yet.
During the stretch I find that plants grow bigger and stay greener when kept on veg nutes rather than immediately switching to bloom food on 12/12. Half veg / half bloom works too.
When the bud hairs actually start to show is when I switch to full strength 2-2-3 bloom food (CNS-17). Don't know if this is the best ratio but it keeps the leaves healthy. Even at 2-2-3 I was having some heavy onset of yellowing in the Apollo-13 strain and I had to topdress with guano.
However, I find that the TGA strains I'm growing can't take any amount of P/K booster, at least not in the first 4 weeks because the hairs start to brown. So in my opinion, I think it's a misconception that cannabis uses more P & K in bloom and less N. From what I've found, it probably uses the same ratio as in veg, but in slightly increasing amounts as it nears the end.
As for more sugar coated buds I don't know if molasses / Sucanat / etc. really helps, but it doesn't hurt so that's what I've been adding.
Also, didn't you say you had an HPS? HPS/MH will give you more trichome production.
dang I typed more than I intended to but I have a grow journal going in this section called "My TGA garden." I'm growing a bunch of strains but only cus they all looked so tasty I had to buy a few seeds of each lol.